Your Eyes on Me
by Kanna37
Summary: A post Naraku look at Inuyasha's thoughts during the three years Kagome was away. Very Angsty.


**Your Eyes on Me**

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of Inuyasha, nor do I own the Richard Marx song Eyes on Me that this short one shot is based on.

~oOo~

_Did I really waste so much time back then that now there isn't any more of it for us?_

Inuyasha stared at the Hono kui no Ido, his entire being shouting suffering and agony. It had already been two years since Kagome had disappeared into it after destroying Naraku, and no one had seen hide nor hair of her since. Even her scent was long gone from everywhere but one place in the well – and while he hated the reason for that, he couldn't help but be thankful at the result of said reason.

His ear flattened against his scalp and he leaned down, bracing himself on both hands on the edge of the well and looking down into it, his bangs dropping low to hide the anguish in his eyes and the almost bitter downturn to his lips.

_She'd caught me with my past again... and come running to the well just like always. Though I was so surprised that she didn't go through to her era that time, just leaned against that one cracked stone in the bottom and sobbed her heart out. The scent of her tears – of her – has been embedded there ever since, and it's the only reason I haven't completely lost myself. _

His eyes fell closed as he remembered that day, catching the sound of her painful gasp from behind a tree in the forest, whipping around in dismay to see Kagome's running form, and racing after her only to find her at the bottom of the well with her faced pressed to that stone and crying with so much misery he just wanted to rip his own heart out so he could die and be unable to ever hurt her again. _But I couldn't ever have done that... because then there wouldn't have been anyone to protect her – and she needed it more than anyone I've ever known._

With a miserable sigh he opened his eyes and straightened back up, getting ready to jump in the well again just like he'd been doing every three days for the last two years. He didn't really expect it to work, but at least then he'd be closer to her scent when he landed in the bottom of the dry well.

If Kagome had been youkai or hanyou with a good sense of smell – and she'd actually returned to be in the well on this side of the rift – she'd be able to smell a stone that was covered in_ his_ scent... because it was where he pressed his own head and cried every time he jumped into the once-portal and yet remained trapped in his own era while his reason for living was lost a far five hundred years across the sea of time.

He would never allow anything to ruin the only thing he had left of the girl he'd realized all the way back at the time they'd met Jinengi was who he belonged with, and he protected the wooden structure like it was the Shikon no Tama and he needed it to wish her back with. He'd figured it out back then, that she was his home, was the only thing that gave him a reason to belong anywhere at all. And despite all the things that had happened with his past love, his understanding of his place in life had never changed from the moment he'd realized it. That was why he always returned to Kagome's side to stay with her no matter how many times his duty to and feelings towards said past had pulled him away. While it was true that he'd had feelings for that past, they weren't the same as they were for his present, for who he hoped was his future, and they never would have been. That didn't mean he could stop himself for grieving for that past when he would be confronted with it – but it had never been as important to him as Kagome was and always would be.

With little hope he flexed his legs and leapt lightly over the edge of the well, descending gently to land on the dirt at the bottom of it just like he'd known would happen. And just like always his failure to be whisked away from the place he was now trapped had the tears that had always been stuck inside him until Kagome had taught him that it was okay to cry for those you cared about, pouring down his cheeks as his head fell to rest against the stone that held his scent... the one that was right next to the one that held hers. And with nothing else to give him a reason to even keep breathing he inhaled as deeply as he could as his own salty tears mixed in with the smell of hers, and let himself fall into oblivion for as long as the kami would allow.

It was the only time he had any peace anymore and even that was minimal, because he couldn't escape the lost feeling that being away from the raven-haired and blue-eyed angel of his torment left him with even in his dreams.

Time passed, and Inuyasha woke up to the world once more curled up in misery inside the well as the sky's own tears joined his and Kagome's, wetting him and the bottom of the dark space with a gentleness that just reminded him even more of the girl who'd showed him what it _really_ felt like to be alive. He rolled over, uncaring about the muddy mess the dirt was becoming with the rain and looked up at the patch of sky visible at the top of the ancient structure with dead eyes. It was a soft, gray day, the kind that had always given him an excuse to cut short the day's adventuring back on the hunt for Naraku and find some good place to make camp. And it was a secret pleasure, this soft but insistent rain, because once the others were asleep he could sneak over to sit by Kagome and the fire and put his arm around her, with the ready-made excuse that he was helping to keep her warm so she wouldn't get sick handy just in case any dirty-minded monks woke up and noticed.

But just as with everything else, without Kagome nothing was the same and there was no life, and as the rain fell down around him leaving him floating in a silent, gentle hell with mist drifting through the early evening and sad gray clouds leaching the color from the world, he stared at the darkening sky through what could only be called the mask of a sullen angel.

_Kami, please, _he thought, _hear my prayer. I would battle anyone or anything to be allowed to return to her, I'd hit my knees and beg my brother for whatever you might ask, steal any object you wished, anything to prove my love for her, to prove that I would always take care of her and protect her. _"I'd tell my worst enemy about my human night, go to hell and suffer a thousand years of torment just for a chance to be a slave to you, Kagome... for just one more moment of your eyes on me." He shook his head, disgusted at himself because he knew the kami wouldn't care no matter what he promised, and then threw his arm over his eyes as he wandered back through his memories to days when every one that passed didn't look the same as the one before it – to days when his world was awake and filled with beauty and _life_ and all because of one small girl from another world.

_I don't know why or how you did it, Kagome, and I don't even care, but somehow you're burning me from the inside out. And all I live for now is the chance to hear you say that it's you who lives... to take my breath away..._

"The things I wouldn't do for one more taste of you, Kagome... those two times I was allowed to taste your lips will never be enough. All my soul longs for is one single taste, one single _breath_ that I can hear so I know you are still alive and beautiful and the flame that keeps my soul burning even though we're apart," he said, his voice falling lower and lower until it was a mere whisper. "I wish that the kami would look upon me with pity just once, because I'm addicted... to your eyes on me."

His voice didn't even echo in the oddly muffled air around him, and as the sound of his words dissipated the grieving hanyou picked himself up out of the mud and with one last, tender touch to the stone that held the final thread of his sanity he exited the well and walked away, his entire bearing shouting his dejection that once again he'd been denied passage back to the one who was the better part of his soul and most of his conscience.

Unknown to him, however, someone else did hear his words... and suddenly Kagome's scent on the stone at the bottom of the well grew stronger-

-As did the scent of her tears. Perhaps someone somewhere _had_ taken pity on the anguished hanyou after all, but only time would truly tell.

_I'm addicted to... your eyes on me._

~oOo~

A/N: I don't care what anyone says, but I believe that Inuyasha was perfectly capable of speaking in such a lyrical way – after all, his mother was a hime and he was raised by her until her death. Angry Inuyasha just didn't bother to speak well, since hanyou are just animals to most of those around them, no one would have expected him to show any intelligence or proper manners, and after a while he wouldn't have even bothered trying.

But if you look at his expressions and the emotive eyes he has, especially in the final season, anime or manga, you will see that expressiveness just waiting to be noticed. So... I don't care if you don't like Inuyasha, but I don't want to hear about him being an undeserving wretch who only cared about Kagome secondary to Kikyou. I used to think the same, but after being a fan of this anime for almost seven years and more importantly reading the manga, I no longer believe that's true. As stated above, Inuyasha had realized who he belonged with all the way back during the Jinengi episode, and I think that says it all right there. He belonged with her because he loved her even then, even if he wasn't quite ready to acknowledge it in so many words. On top of that he knew that he and Kagome were considered a couple by the others of their group and never denied it, otherwise he wouldn't have been accused so many times by Shippo and the others of 'cheating' on Kagome. And if no one noticed, at the very end of the series he OUTWARDLY ACKNOWLEDGES that Kagome was born to meet him, and he was born for_ her. _ Not Kikyou.

So... to make a long story short, I don't want to see any flames or people whining about Inuyasha and how he's just an ignorant bastard who is only taking Kagome because he doesn't have any other choice. If you are STILL stuck thinking this, then go back and re-read the manga or even watch the anime. It might just surprise you.

Amber


End file.
